Laurent_Boutonnat

Laurent Boutonnat

Laurent Boutonnat

French composer and director

Laurent Boutonnat (born 14 June 1961) is a French film composer and music video director, best known as the songwriting partner of Mylène Farmer and the director of several music videos.

Career

Born in Paris, Laurent Boutonnat directed his first film, Ballade de la Féconductrice, at age 17, although the film itself is rated 18+. It was later screened off-competition at the Festival de Cannes. The movie contains several graphic elements that now characterize Boutonnat's provocative style.

In 1984, Boutonnat and Jérôme Dahan composed a song called "Maman a tort" which required a female singer. When they did auditions for the part, Mylène Farmer, at the time an acting student, won it, beginning her still ongoing artistic collaboration with Boutonnat. While Farmer had limited songwriting input on her first album, she thereafter began writing all her lyrics while Boutonnat composed and arranged the music.

Boutonnat also took charge of Farmer's visual image. He started directing long, big-budget, literature-inspired music videos that were more like short films. His style became more recognized thanks to the videos for "Libertine" and "Pourvu qu'elles soient douces" in which the action takes place during the eighteenth century. Other videos such as "Ainsi soit je..." were praised for their simple visual language. All of Boutonnat's videos during that time contained many references to literature and art, like Farmer's lyrics. Boutonnat is considered by some to have revolutionized French music videos by including art and cinematic imagery into them and therefore not limiting them to simple commercial tools.

Boutonnat's videos for Farmer contained many nude and sexually provocative scenes, leading TV stations to ban them from airplay. In the early 1990s, at the end of the promotion of Farmer and Boutonnat's hugely successful album "L'autre...", Farmer decided to start working with different music video directors, though Boutonnat remained her songwriting partner. The last video he directed for her was "Beyond My Control", which was banned from daytime TV for violence and sex.

In 1994, Boutonnat directed his first feature film, Giorgino, based on an idea he had had for many years. Starring Farmer, Jeff Dahlgren, and Joss Ackland, the film was a critical and commercial flop, although more recent reviews of the film are more favourable after it achieved cult status with its DVD release. Personally shaken by its failure, Boutonnat and Farmer decided to part ways. Farmer moved to the United States, where she started writing more lyrics and discovering new music. Shortly afterwards, she reconciled with Boutonnat and asked him to write the music for her lyrics again; the resulting album was a success. The corresponding music videos were not directed by Boutonnat.

After a string of hugely successful albums, Farmer and Boutonnat wrote Alizée's first two successful albums, the first of which beat sales records. Boutonnat also directed Alizée's music videos, which were far more commercial and TV-friendly than those he had previously directed.

In 2001, Boutonnat directed his first video for Farmer since "Beyond My Control," the hit single "Les Mots" that she recorded with Seal. The video contains many references to Le radeau de la méduse, the famous painting by Géricault.

In 2007, Boutonnat directed Jacquou le Croquant, his first feature film since 1994. Variety gave the film a positive review, praising it as "feisty family fare" with "pleasingly Dickensian" themes.[1] Characterizing the film as a "handsomely mounted, old-fashioned mini-epic",[1] Variety singled out its cinematography for praise: "Painterly widescreen lensing wins the day. Shot in the burnished fields and rustic outcroppings of France and Romania, with a preference for classy amber and ochre tones, many scenes look like vintage etchings or oil paintings."[1]

In December 2010, Farmer released her eighth album, Bleu Noir, without any collaboration with Boutonnat. The album marked the first time that Farmer and Boutonnat had not worked together in Farmer's music career. The duo reunited in 2012, composing all the songs for the album Monkey Me together; however, her albums after that were again done without Boutonnat. He was nonetheless part of the stage design team on her 2019 tour, and they worked together on a project for Julia in 2020.

Theatrical movies

Live videos

  • Mylène Farmer - En concert (1990)
  • Mylène Farmer - Live à Bercy (1997)

Music videos

Albums

Laurent Boutonnat worked as composer and producer on all the albums listed.

Movie soundtracks

References

  1. [1]
    Nesselson, Lisa (23 Mar 2007). "Jacquou le Croquant (France-Germany)". Variety. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
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